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Having an ageing population is an issue facing many countries, particularly western nations. With governments and service providers focusing on healthy ageing and ageing in place, notions of choice and active participation for older people in selecting services appropriate to remaining in the community are also emphasised. Central to this is the issue of information navigation: knowing what services are available and how to get that information, for older people and those who support them. Based on a series of qualitative studies of service provision and using perspectives from older people, their families and those who provide services for them, this paper argues that greater attention needs to be paid to the process of information navigation as opposed to providing ever more information content.

Enabling optimal care transitions for older people remains a key challenge facing policy‐makers and service providers. This qualitative Australian study aimed to provide a comprehensive picture of the factors/issues surrounding care transitions from the perspective of older people and their carers. It documents how supports and services are searched for and gained during the care transition process and the effect of this process on older people and their families. These findings have implications for service provision and policy relating to both assisting older people to age in place wherever possible and facilitating optimal care transitions when they are required.

The concept of sociomaterial practice has been proposed as a term including materiality as constitutive elements in any social practice. The concept also suggests that while social relations are constituted by and mediated by materiality, materiality per se is enacted in a social context. Practice is thus unfolding as a form of constitutive entanglement of social and material resources at hand. The paper aims at discussing the concept of practice as what is mobilizing both material and intangible resources.

The study draws on interviews with construction workers, foremen, and site managers in three projects in a medium sized construction company.

The study suggests that while construction work is both regulated by piece‐rate wage systems and being largely composed of standard operation procedures, there is still a strong reliance on collectively accomplished routines for communicating and interacting in the workplace. Rather than being determined by and reducible to material conditions, social relations and mutual trust play a key role in construction projects.

The concept of sociomaterial practice is opening up for a more articulated recognition of the entanglement of social and material resources in organizing work. The study presents first‐hand data on how construction work rests on the collective capacity to combine both material and social elements.

Organizations are sites where identities are constructed and maintained and a substantial literature points at identity work as being of central importance for managerial practice. Identities are often fragile and contingent constructs, shifting over time and as the actor moves between assignments, being bound up with professional and occupational ideologies, norm and beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to report a study of how construction workers build their occupational identities on the basis of a combination of identification with their work and the quality they deliver benefitting the end‐user and what Elsbach and Bhattacharya call disidentification, i.e. a critique of the construction industry.

A study of identity work in the construction industry suggests that identities are based on three interrelated processes, the enactment of normative beliefs of ideal selves, the recognition of the accomplishments in the present construction project work, and the disidentification with the construction industry articulated in storytelling practices.

Construction workers’ identities are thus a patchwork, stitching together a variety of heterogeneous resources. This makes identity work an ongoing social process influenced by both the material conditions of the actual work and norms, beliefs, and aspirations.

The paper contributes to the identity literature by emphasizing that identities are irreducible to either material conditions, norm and beliefs, or narrative accounts but are simultaneously drawing on all these resources.

This study aims to look at the effects of the Israeli occupation on the mental health of Palestinians and examine the link between political oppression and the occurrence of mental health disorders. It argues that, as human rights violations in Palestine are connected to psychological distress, the root causes of social suffering need to be considered in order not to pathologize Palestinians. The purpose of this paper lies in connecting the mental health discourse with a human rights approach to better understand this connection within the context of political violence.

The paper presents the viewpoint and perspectives of the authors on significant mental health issues in Palestine. The methodology is based on a literature review of the de-politicization of the mental health discourse and on the theoretical framework of a human rights approach. At the base of this discourse lies the demand for social justice and professional solidarity.

The study highlights that to truly understand social suffering in Palestine, it needs to be related to the prevalence of human rights violations, which in turn have a conceivable impact on the mental health well-being of individuals. It advocates for a shift from a de-contextualized, de-politicized and individualistic approach to mental health to acknowledging the importance of the social and political context in which trauma develops. It further illustrates how the adaptation of a human rights approach can strengthen demands of social justice and oppose the victimization of Palestinians.

The value of the works lies in putting the prevalence of mental health disorders in Palestine in relation to human rights violations as a consequence of the ongoing Israeli occupation and in highlighting the role that international organizations play in the de-politicization of the mental health discourse.

There are explicit calls for research devoted to how political actors present their brand to the electorate and how this is interpreted. Responding to this, the purpose of this paper is to build an understanding of how political brand messages and values are received and aligned with voter expectations, which in turn shapes the consistency of a political brand.

Using an interpretivist perspective, this two-stage approach first focuses on semi-structured interviews with internal stakeholders of the UK Conservative Party and second uses focus group discussions with external stakeholders (voters) of age 18-24 years. Data was collected between 1 December 2014 and 6 May 2015.

The findings suggest that the UK Conservative brand had recovered from the “nasty party” reputation. Further, the Conservative brand was perceived as credible, trustworthy and responsible, with positive associations of “economic competence”. However, while the nasty party imagery has declined, the UK Conservative brand continues to face challenges particularly in terms of longstanding negative associations perceived by both internal and external markets.

It must be acknowledged that all research methods have their own limitations, and acknowledging these will strengthen the ability to draw conclusions. In this study, for example, due to time constraints during the election campaign period, 7 participants supported stage one of the study and 25 participants supported stage two of the study. However, participants from stage one of the study represented all three elements of the UK Conservative Party (Parliamentary, Professional and Voluntary). In addition, the elite interviews were longer in duration and this provided a greater opportunity to capture detailed stories of their life experiences and how this affected their brand relationship. Similarly, participants for stage two focussed on young voters of age 18-24 years, a segment actively targeted by the UK Conservative Party.

The brand alignment framework can help practitioners illuminate components of the political brand and how it is interpreted by the electorate. The increasing polarisation in politics has made this a vital area for study, as we see need to understand if, how or why citizens are persuaded by a more polarised brand message. There are also social media issues for the political brand which can distort the carefully constructed brand. There are opportunities to evaluate and operationalize this framework in other political contexts.

The brand alignment model extends current branding theory first by building on an understanding of the complexities of creating brand meaning, second, by operationalizing differences between the brand and how it is interpreted by the electorate, finally, by identifying if internal divisions within the political party pose a threat to the consistency of the brand.

Purpose: This chapter focuses on the relations between aging and the perception about the families’ quality of life in a medium-sized Portuguese city. Departing from the descriptions of individuals living with at least one child under 14 years of age, particular emphasis is put on how young adults perceive and incorporate into their speeches the presence and role of non-cohabiting elderly, namely their parents and in-laws, as an expression of the quality of life they experience.

Design/methodology/approach: Data rely on episodic interviews conducted with both men and women with young children (3–14 years old), within a broader sociological research devoted to the study of family rituals. The data collected was analyzed using qualitative techniques of content analysis with the help of NVivo software (QSR). The data is presented recurring to contextualized narratives.

Findings: Data analysis allows to conclude that geography matters in the perception that young adults have when reflecting upon the role of the elderly surrounding them, either their parents or in-laws. The presence and coexistence of generations are perceived as “priceless,” a “fortune,” and a “privilege,” possible in a medium-sized city, where everything is close enough to thicken the informal intergenerational solidarities between grandparents, parents, and grandchildren. Behind the scenes, data, furthermore, discloses unpredictable tensions arising mainly regarding children’s education, rules, and behavior.

Originality/value: This chapter contributes to shed light into the daily life of elderly people who are still independent and active, and the seemingly invisible presence and unimportant role they play in their children and grandchildren’s lives.

The chapter examines the perceptions of a range of stakeholders regarding the ethics of earnings management (EM) by Libyan commercial banks. EM ethics research has largely been based on a questionnaire developed by Bruns and Merchant (1990). This chapter addresses the issue in two different ways. First, it directly examines the interviewees’ perceptions on whether EM is ethical or not. Second, stakeholders’ perceptions are surveyed using a set of questions that consider, for example, the effect of EM on others’ interests and whether EM is ethical if applied within General Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) and the law. A total of 28 semi-structured interviews were carried out with stakeholders comprising: preparers of financial statements, users, regulators, and academics. A questionnaire survey of stakeholders which yielded 102 responses (response rate 53%) was also carried out. Interview findings indicated that 50% of the interviewees have the view that EM is ethical. Questionnaire results, on the other hand, revealed that EM is agreed, on balance, to be perceived as unethical. However, if applied within GAAP and the legal framework it is perceived, on balance, to be ethical. The chapter provides insights into stakeholders’ perceptions of EM ethics. The findings are of particular relevance to the users, and specifically, the external auditor as well as current and potential investors. EM practices, according to the literature, degrade financial reporting quality and may affect economic decisions. Auditors should be aware that EM may be regarded as an ethical practice and therefore more scrutiny might be required. In terms of accountability a manager should be held accountable not only to shareholders but also to society as a whole.

Central to the study of intercultural communication has been the question of what promotes closer ties between nations. This research replicates and extends a model that specifies three factors (perceptions of homophily, shared interests, and threats), drawn from social distance and systems perspectives, that are posited to have an influence on the desire for closer ties between Brazil and the U.S. Each of the factors have previously been identified as occupying central positions in the development of international relationships. This research extends this model by explicitly incorporating a range of communication channels which are impacted by these factors and which are also hypothesized to effect the desire for closer ties. The results were supportive of the model, with excellent goodness of fit measures for the specified model to the observed data. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for conflict management.

Tibor Darvas Ltd, the UK based, front end CAM specialist for the printed circuit board manufacturing industry, is pleased to announce the appointment of Paul Speller as Product Sales Manager.